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What have you
learned or
experienced
at St. John’s
that you never
imagined you
would learn
or experience?
I never in my life expected
to come to love math.
In high school, I tried my
hardest to not take math
classes, though they
made me take them all
Mr. Pavlos Papadopoulos ’10
Natick, Massachusetts
Extracurriculars: Intramural soccer, Ultimate Frisbee,
“
Reason Ball,” basketball, team handball, volleyball;
sailing; croquet; Student Committee on Instruction
Future plans: Teaching
four years. At St John’s,
the mathematics tutorial
has very often been
my favorite class of the
year. I knew I had to take
math when I came to
St John’s, but I didn’t
realize I would enjoy it.
What is your
favorite text
or author from
the program—
and why?
Although it is really hard
to choose, I’d have to
say The Histories by
Herodotus is definitely
among my top three, if not
my absolute favorite. Its
main focus is the origins
and fighting of the war
between Greece and
Persia, but Herodotus
doesn’t treat it like a
modern history textbook.
Instead he spends the
first half of the work giving
this huge, sweeping look
over the ancient world in
Mr. Babak Zarin ’11
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Extracurriculars: St. John’s Chorus, Storytellers Club
Future plans: Graduate school, joint-degree program in law
which he writes about
what the people believe,
how they act, dress, think
about others, etc.; he
doesn’t exclude anything,
even if he thinks it’s
unlikely, because it’s what
the people there think
is true. This means you
get a great picture of
what life was like, and so
by the time you even
get to the war you really
feel like you understand
just what’s at stake in it.